by Bruce Catton
Colonel John Emerson who was always ready to take Grant’s side in any argument presented an account of the meeting which, he said, had been given him by an officer who was present. Halleck, he said, shook hands with Grant rather stiffly, then sat at his desk, began shuffling papers, and told Grant to “state briefly the nature of the business connected with your command which brought you to headquarters.” Grant took out a map, unfolded it, and began to explain the situation at Fort Henry and at Fort Donelson—which, on the Cumberland, was only a dozen miles away from Fort Henry. With a column of twenty-five thousand men aided by the gunboats, he said, he could take both forts in ten days and probably Columbus as well.
Halleck, according to the way Emerson heard it, stopped him by asking coldly:
“Is there anything connected with the good of your command you wish to discuss?”
Grant tried to trace the projected movement on the map, but Halleck stood up, waved the map aside, and said:
“All of this, General Grant, relates to the business of the General commanding the department. When he wishes to consult you on that subject he will notify you.”
Having said this, Halleck stalked out, leaving Grant to pocket his map and go back to Cairo.23
If Grant had been humiliated it did not show on him that evening. Dr. Brinton was in St. Louis at the time, and that night the doctor went to a theater, a slightly disreputable place as he recalled it, where he was sitting “listening to wretched jabber on the stage.” He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Grant looking down at him.
“Oh, Doctor, Doctor,” said Grant, grinning and chewing a cigar, “if you only knew how it grieves me to find you in such a low place and in such company.” Having said this, Grant sat down beside him and saw the performance. He told Brinton that he intended to have him back at Cairo with him before long. As far as the surgeon could see, Grant was in excellent spirits.
However unsatisfactory his interview with Halleck may have been, Grant found time on this St. Louis trip to attend to a few personal matters. He went to call on Harry Boggs, with whom he had had a brief, unsuccessful real estate partnership in 1858, and found that his old friends felt that he had gone up in the world. In 1858, he had occupied one room in the Boggs house; now Mrs. Boggs, vastly impressed by Grant’s position as commander of the Cairo district, worried for fear her home might be too humble for him. Grant also went to a French chemist to buy some medicine for his nine-year-old son Ulysses, who was very ill with what an Army doctor had diagnosed as inflammatory rheumatism; the doctor had said that only the medicine compounded by this particular chemist was likely to effect a cure. As Mrs. Grant remembered the case, long afterward, the medicine was almost miraculously effective. When Grant returned to Cairo, little Ulysses was delirious, with a high fever. The medicine was administered, and he quickly recovered.24
Grant is generally given credit for bringing to Halleck’s attention the desirability of an invasion of Tennessee via the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Actually, Halleck had already been doing a great deal of thinking about such an offensive. The long interchange of letters and telegrams around the Halleck-Buell-McClellan triangle could not have failed to impress the idea on his mind. It had been rumored for weeks that he would eventually send an expedition down the Mississippi, but as early as December 16 a newspaper correspondent had said flatly: “The movement will not go down the Mississippi but go up the Tennessee, where Gen. Halleck’s forces, 75,000 strong, will leave the river and march to the rear of Columbus, Hickman and other points toward Memphis. This will compel the Rebels at Columbus and other points to fall back on Memphis, thus leaving the river clear for the gunboats and transportation vessels to pass up and down unmolested.” Some time before that, Colonel Charles Whittlesey, chief of the Army Engineers at Cincinnati, had written Halleck asking:
Will you allow me to suggest the consideration of a great movement by land and water up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers?
1st. Would it not allow of water transportation halfway to Nashville?
2nd. Would it not necessitate the evacuation of Columbus by threatening their railway communications?
3d. Would it not necessitate the retreat of General Buckner by threatening his railway lines?
4th. Is it not the most passable route into Tennessee?25
Colonel Emerson insisted that Whittlesey, in Washington, had heard about the river move which (as Emerson insisted) Grant had blocked out during the previous summer, and he said Whittlesey visited Grant not long after the battle of Belmont and went over the whole proposal with him, with maps on the table before them. Emerson almost certainly exaggerated. Grant himself never claimed to have originated the movement; he and Whittlesey apparently did not meet until later, and in any case the move was an obvious approach that would strike any general’s eye. Several days before Grant came to see him, Halleck wrote to McClellan saying that a drive straight down the Mississippi was not quite practicable. Then he went on to set forth his own views:
A much more feasible plan is to move up the Cumberland and Tennessee, making Nashville the first objective point. This would turn Columbus and force the abandonment of Bowling Green. Columbus cannot be taken without an immense siege train and a terrible loss of life.… But it can be turned, paralyzed and forced to surrender. This line of the Cumberland or Tennessee is the great central line of the Western theater of war.… But the plan should not be attempted without a large force, not less than 60,000 men.26
Halleck, in other words, had been giving the Tennessee-Cumberland plan a great deal of attention, and if he was not exactly swept off his feet by the discovery that Grant had been thinking along the same lines it is not surprising. Furthermore, although Halleck had been doing nothing much more lofty than trying to keep his own record clear when he warned McClellan that a major offensive in Kentucky might mean the loss of Missouri, he did have major problems in that state and his reluctance to send troops into Kentucky is at least understandable. In many parts of Missouri Halleck was confronting exactly what the Confederates in eastern Tennessee were facing—an uprising of a dissident populace, accompanied by many annoying acts of bridge-burning, railroad-blocking and the like—and between this and the flood of Unionist-minded refugees who had been driven from their homes and were flocking into St. Louis he had his hands full.
Indeed, the whole experience was turning Halleck into a hard-war man of the most ruthless kind, and the harsh rules which other Federal commanders would enforce in the occupied South in the years to come stemmed largely from the frame of mind which Halleck developed during his tour of duty in St. Louis. Early in December he issued an extremely tough statement of policy. Thousands of loyal citizens of Missouri had been robbed and driven from their homes, he said, by the Confederates, and were reaching St. Louis “barefooted, half-clad and in a destitute and starving condition.” There were in St. Louis, he continued, many well-to-do folk of secessionist sympathies, who gave encouragement and help to the marauders. Consequently, the provost-marshals in St. Louis would see to it that the refugees were quartered in the homes and at the expense of the pro-Confederates. The provost marshals were to make up lists of disloyal citizens “who are, judging by their mode of living, in good circumstances,” and each person so listed would be required to contribute ten thousand dollars to the support of the refugees. In the ordinary way of things, this contribution would be made in food and living quarters; the disloyalists would have house guests, whether they wanted them or not, and their property would be seized and sold at auction if they refused to comply.27
Halleck was rigorous about it. Confederate sympathizers in St. Louis were greatly subdued, and Dr. Brinton noted approvingly that “It is becoming a dangerous game to be ‘sassy.’” One of Halleck’s orders foreshadowed the brutal rule Ben Butler was to adopt in New Orleans. Secessionist women in St. Louis took to wearing red-and-white rosettes as an emblem of their devotion to the South. Halleck did not try to stop them by direct action; he simply h
ad a lot of the rosettes made up and given to prostitutes, who were instructed to wear them on all occasions. Then an inspired newspaper article called attention to the fact that all of the loose women in the city were coming out in red-and-white rosettes.…
Some of the house guests with whom women of Southern sympathies found themselves afflicted were difficult people to get along with; even Dr. Brinton referred to them as “these half-savage Union women.” One secessionist woman who lived in a nice home and found herself hostess to one of these creatures thought to discourage the guest by removing her parlor furniture. The refugee, who knew that the full might of the United States government was supporting her, told her angrily: “I will tell you when I want them carpets up.”28
Grant had no hesitation in following Halleck’s lead in these matters. At the end of December he announced that the Cairo district was overrun with loyalist refugees “who have been driven from their homes and deprived of the means of subsistence by the acts of disloyal citizens of Kentucky and Missouri.” These people needed food and shelter, and “justice demands that the class of persons who have caused their sufferings should bear the expense of the same”; consequently, Grant ordered that contributions be collected from disloyalists in the same manner followed by Halleck in St. Louis. He added a refinement of his own: a pro-secessionist who was liable to this assessment, and who happened to be of Northern birth and education, would be required to pay 50 per cent more than a Southerner of the same class and means.29
Outside of St. Louis Halleck found plenty to do. He said that at this time he had fully ten thousand soldiers guarding railroad lines, but that in a ten-day period Rebel guerillas did one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of damage to rails, telegraph lines and bridges. “Nothing,” he wrote, “but the severest punishment” could stop this, and he proposed to be severe “although I have no doubt there will be a newspaper howl against me as a blood-thirsty monster.” He declared that “our army here is almost as much in a hostile country as it was when in Mexico,” and he warned the commander of one outpost: “Missouri is and must remain in the Union, and all Rebels must be driven out or punished. There must be no more halfway measures.” All persons who cut down telegraph poles or tried to damage railway lines, he ordered, were to be shot forthwith.
At the same time Halleck tried without great success to restrain the more ferocious Union adherents. In the extreme western part of the state Kansas troops under vengeful officers like General James H. Lane and Colonel C. R. Jennison were instituting a reign of terror which appalled the commander in St. Louis, and Halleck told McClellan that they were simply creating sympathy for the Confederates. He said their excesses had “done more for the enemy in this state than could have been accomplished by 20,000 of his own army.” With memories in which the lawless times of the “border ruffians” were still fresh, the Kansans were completely ruthless. Jennison announced publicly that “traitors will everywhere be treated as outlaws—enemies of God and man—too base to hold any description of property and having no rights which loyal men are bound to respect.” Operating under such orders, the “Jay-hawkers” in the Kansas regiments had a field day, and as they looted and burned they did not always make nice distinctions between friend and foe. One St. Louis newspaper commented editorially: “The Jayhawker bases or professes to base his operations upon the principle of never robbing or hanging one who entertains the same political creed as himself if it is possible to avoid it.”30
It is against this background that Halleck’s slowness in mounting an offensive in Kentucky must be appraised. At the same time it must in fairness be added that the impatience of his subordinates around Cairo undoubtedly spurred him on to action. In addition, no general of Halleck’s intelligence could fail to see that the Federal command situation in the West, with the crucial area divided between two independent commands, was both unsatisfactory and unstable. Sooner or later, either Buell or Halleck was likely to be given the over-all command in the West, and the prize would almost certainly go to the one who bestirred himself first. The President for weeks had been demanding action, and Buell (for his own reasons) was not giving it to him. If Halleck should move first, Halleck was very likely to become top dog.
By January 22 Halleck had begun to make up his mind. He notified Grant that substantial additional forces would be sent to him, and told him to prepare a large encampment at Smithland, where the Cumberland joined the Ohio, to receive them. (This message went to Grant before Grant visited St. Louis.) An important factor in Halleck’s decision undoubtedly was the fact that Washington informed him that the famous Confederate General G. T. Beauregard was being sent West to join Johnston. What gave this news, which was quite correct, added point was the totally false report that Beauregard was taking fifteen regiments with him as reinforcements. To both McClellan and Halleck it seemed that the long-awaited blow had better be struck before these troops arrived.
Meanwhile, Grant and Foote had been making their own preparations. On January 28, Foote wired Halleck: “Commanding General Grant and myself are of opinion that Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, can be carried with four iron-clad gun-boats and troops to permanently occupy. Have we your authority to move for that purpose when ready?” On the same day Grant supplemented this by wiring Halleck: “With permission, I will take Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and establish and hold a large camp there.” He followed this by writing to Halleck in more detail, on the following day:
In view of the large force now concentrating in this district and the present feasibility of the plan I would respectfully suggest the propriety of subduing Fort Henry, near the Kentucky and Tennessee line, and holding the position. If this is not done soon there is but little doubt but that the defenses on both the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers will be materially strengthened. From Fort Henry it will be easy to operate either on the Cumberland, only 12 miles distant, Memphis, or Columbus. It will, besides, have a moral effect upon our troops to advance them toward the Rebel States. The advantages of this move are as perceptible to the general commanding as to myself, therefore further statements are unnecessary.31
It must be said that these messages do not sound quite like the offerings of a subordinate who had just been snubbed for making exactly the same proposals verbally. Halleck may have been reserved when Grant talked to him, but there is at least a hint in the wording of Grant’s letter that Grant was returning to a subject on which he and his commanding general had come to some sort of understanding, and it seems quite possible that Halleck had simply wanted to be assured that Foote shared Grant’s optimism.32 In any case, Halleck now responded promptly. On January 30 he wrote certain dispatches that put the war into high gear. To McClellan he wrote:
Your telegraph respecting Beauregard is received. General Grant and Commodore Foote will be ordered to immediately advance and to reduce and hold Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, and also to cut the railroad line between Dover and Paris. [Halleck meant the line that connected Johnston’s stronghold at Columbus with his massed forces in the neighborhood of Bowling Green. It did not actually go within ten miles of Dover.] The roads are in such condition as to render all movements exceedingly slow and difficult.
Halleck added that he had reinforced Grant with eight regiments of infantry and that several more regiments and three batteries of field artillery were under orders to join him, and he concluded: “I will send down every man I can spare.”33
To Buell, Halleck telegraphed: “I have ordered an advance of our troops on Fort Henry and Dover. It will be made immediately.” And to Grant he wired: “Make your preparations to take and hold Fort Henry. I will send you written instructions by mail.”
These instructions, dated January 30, spelled it out:
You will immediately prepare to send forward to Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, all your available forces from Smithland, Paducah, Fort Holt, Bird’s Point, etc. Sufficient garrisons must be left to hold these places against an attack from Columbus.
&
nbsp; Warning Grant that the roads were bad, Halleck directed that troops and supplies be moved by boat, under naval convoy. Fort Henry was to be “taken and held at all hazards”; Grant should land troops below the fort and cut the roads that led over to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland, so as to make it impossible for the Fort Henry garrison to retreat. He should also send cavalry forward to break the railroad; the railroad bridges over the two rivers “should be rendered impassable but not destroyed.” (The Union forces might need these bridges later.) Three companies of artillery were being sent down to join Grant’s command.34
To Buell, who had been saying that he could not make an offensive move unless Halleck helped him, and to whom no promises of help had been vouchsafed, all of this was a bit surprising. He telegraphed Halleck: “Please let me know your plan and force and the time etc.” Halleck replied that the movement “to take and hold Fort Henry and cut railroad” had already been ordered, that some fifteen thousand men would be involved, and that he would notify Buell by telegraph of the day of investment or attack. Buell, beginning to realize that it was he, and not Halleck, who would be playing second fiddle in the coming offensive, sent back the query:
Do you consider active cooperation essential to your success, because in that case it would be necessary for each to know what the other has to do. It would be several days before I could seriously engage the enemy, and your operation ought not to fail.
There was only a moderate amount of clarification in Halleck’s reply:
Co-operation at present not essential. Fort Henry has been reinforced, but where from I have not learned. The roads are in such horrible condition as to render movements almost impossible on land.… Write me your plans and I will try to assist you.35
